Dinosaur Book and Sensory Bin

I mentioned yesterday that Chase's current favorite bedtime story is How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night.  It was gifted to him by his Ninang Ruby, his Godmother. He looks forward to reading it every night and often wants to read it multiple times.  I discovered last week that he's actually memorized quite a few lines. It's so awesome to watch him 'read to himself.' He has a little twinkle in his eyes when he reads because he's well aware of me watching him in awe. I love this age. :) 

To extend his learning, I embarked on creating some dinosaur related activities, starting with this sensory bin. 

What it contains: 

• 3-4 (?) small bags of small rocks (Dollar Tree) and 1 small bag of medium sized river rocks (Michael's). 
• 3 mini plastic dinosaurs (Party City).
• 2 wind up dinosaurs (Dollar Tree) - I ended up taking these out because he can't wind these up on his own quite yet. 
• 2 rubber monster finger puppets (Target). I tried to get away with passing them off as dinosaurs, but I don't think he bought it. He's even smarter than I thought. ;)
• 2 trees, which I made out of popsicle sticks, felt and fabric glue.
• Leaves pulled from a fake plant (Dollar Tree). 

What he's done with it and what he's learning: 

• Stands/balances the trees in the rocks, then knocks them over so he can do it all over again
• Buries the leaves and dinosaurs with rocks using a scooper or his hands
• Scoops rocks into bowls and other containers, then transfers them back into the bin 
• Plays with the finger puppets and uses them to tickle me

We ended the night walking around on all fours roaring and pretending to be dinosaurs. He loved this! Stay tuned because I'll be sharing other dinosaur activities soon. 

Favorite Books

Lately, I've been finding Chase on the floor flipping through a book on his lap. Sometimes, he's simply looking through pictures. Other times, he's 'reading' to himself by recalling lines we've read together.  I love looking at the genuine interest and focus on his face as he inspects each page.  It's my favorite form of 'play' that I love finding him do.  I often wonder what he's thinking as he looks at the pages. 


I thought it would be fun to share some of our favorite books (past and present).  Some we both love (great story, characters, pictures, rhyming, etc.) and some I simply love because he loves them. 


Here's the roundup, in the order as they appear in the picture above (sequenced by size of the book): 

• First Look and Find, Let's Look! - Baby Einstein: I love the rhythm of the lines in Baby Einstein books. 
• How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? - Jane Yolen & Mark Teague: His current FAVORITE bedtime story. We read this many times every night. He loves reciting several of the lines. He's a genius! ;) This was gifted by Ninang (Godmother) Ruby. 
• Violet's House - Baby Einstein: This is a GREAT touch and feel book.  He loved this since he was a baby and still does.
• First 100 Words - Bright Baby:  He hasn't opened this one in a couple of months, but he used to love looking at the pictures.  I would ask him to show him 'x' and he would proudly point at the corresponding picture. This was a great book to help him practice matching words to objects/pictures.
• My Big Truck Book - Roger Priddy: This book has been a favorite for a long time.  It's basically an large picture book of various trucks. He inspects each page carefully.  I'm often amazed at names he remembers like "telephone tuck" for telephone line truck. 
• I'm Going to be the Best Superhero Ever! - Moira Butterfield: This is a recent love. I got it for $3 from Joanns (score!). I absolutely love the lines in this book and have fun hamming it up when reading it to Chase.  
• The Very Busy Spider - Eric Carle: Chase likes this book most when we incorporate different animal toys to correspond with the animals that visit the Spider in this story.  
• Corduroy - Don Freeman: This was our previous favorite bedtime story.  There's a scene in the book where the security guard is looking for the bear in the department store. Chase loved pretending to walk around with a flashlight when we got to that part in the book. 
• The Very Lazy Ladybug - Isobel Finn: Simply because he loves lady bugs. :)
• Olivia - Ian Falconer: Such a cute story. 
• My Very Own ABCs - Maia Haag: A personalized book gifted by Ninang (Godmother) Ruby
• A House for Hermit Crab - Eric Carle: Love most Eric Carle books
• Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? - Eric Carle
• From Head to Toe - Eric Carle
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle
• Good Night Moon - Margaret Wise Brown
• My World: A Companion to Goodnight Moon - Margaret Wise

[Top Row Right]

• Is Your Mama a Llama? - Deborah Guarino
• Blue Hat, Green Hat - Sandra Boynton - Love the toddler humor in this book. 
• Time for Bed - Mem Fox
• Little Gorilla - Ruth Bornstein

Chase's Ice Cream Parlor

I had a great conversation with my boss earlier today about how important it is to show gratitude to the caregivers and/or teachers that take care of your kids everyday.  I'm lucky to work for an amazing working mom to both learn from and simply chat about shared beliefs when it comes to raising kids. My boss is definitely my role model when it comes to showing Chase's daycare providers how much I appreciate everything they do on a day to day basis.  She has done so much for her daughter's teachers throughout the years.  

We talked about how we both never take for granted how much of an impact teachers and providers have on our kids.  We both believe in treating them the same way that we would want them to treat our kids - with respect, patience, gratitude, praise, encouragement and recognition.  We probably think alike in this way for the same reasons we both found ourselves doing the work we do in training. 

The conversation I had with her earlier reminded me of an ice cream thank you treat that I put together for the Teacher Appreciation week at Chase's day care (May 2011).  I realized that I hadn't shared it yet here...

It was pretty easy to put together.  Time spent was for grocery shopping and making the sign, which I did using Word.  I pulled the background image from Google Images. I didn't have the time to upload Chase's photo onto the document I was working on so I just attached the picture separately with double sided tape.  The hubby does the morning drop off so I asked him to set this up in the teacher's break room.  I armed him with this photo that I took the night before...otherwise, who knows how it would have ended up.  ;)

Here's a closer look at the sign. Hope this inspires you to creatively express your appreciation to others that positively impact your little one's day.  

Sensory Bins - Sports & Bugs

We've been exploring sensory bins a lot lately. I mentioned before that I'm a kinesthetic learner so I'm naturally drawn to this type of hands on hands on play/learning. I was pleased to find out that toddlers in general also learn a lot through this type of exploration.  I recommend reading this post if you want to find out more.  

When I watch the little guy playing with his bins, it looks like he's doing one big science experiment. It's almost like I can hear the questions he's asking, the hypotheses he's making and conclusions he's drawing from this type of play. I love watching him learn. And as an added bonus, sensory bins provide us with a lot of independent/focused play time for Chase. He can sometimes play with them independently for 30-45 minutes.  This is a long time for him! He'll also often come back to them several times throughout the day.  

The pictures above are of Chase exploring a sports themed sensory bin that we had out for the last couple of weeks.  Lately, I've been into creating activities for Chase based on his current interests.  These days, he's OBSESSED with sports so this bin got a lot of daily use. 

Here's a closer look at our sports themed bin.  It includes a basketball whistle, sports medal, miniature clapper, basketball felt, rubber basketball keychain and various sports themed miniature balls, slinkies, painted wooden circles, and erasers.  I used pink beans as the filler. 

Chase has been into bugs lately.  When picking him up from day care the past couple of weeks, I find him and some of the other kids often playing around with rolly pollies outside.  They have been fasciated with these critters.  Chase is also into lady bugs and has been watching this and this lady bug video on You Tube.  

The two bins above are of the same bug/critter themed sensory bin I put together this past Sunday.  I first used split peas as the filler, but they were too hard to clean up so I switched them out for penne pasta. Aside from the filler, this bin includes various plastic bugs/critters, lady bug and bumble bee pencil tops, erasers, twigs, rocks and a magnifying glass. Most things from both the sports and bug/critter bins were purchased from Party City and Education Station. 

Sports Felt Board Pictures

The little guy's teacher at day care has been so awesome with him! She does all sorts of fun activities throughout the day that have really helped with his development. To show our appreciation, I wanted to gift her something that she could use in her classroom.  The theme this week at the day care is sports, so I created 4 sets of sports themed felt pictures for his teacher to use.  The felt board you see in these pictures is the one we use at home.  

These were pretty easy to make: (1) I searched for sports related pictures on google images (2) arranged the pictures on PowerPoint (3) printed them on iron on transfer paper (4) ironed them onto felt fabric and then (5) cut the pictures.  And voila! - super cute felt board pictures at a fraction of what they would cost you when purchased at the store. 

I loved these felt pieces so much that I ended up making a second set to keep.  The little guy has really been into sports lately so I know we'll get a lot of use out of these. 

Summer Fun

I'm not thrilled about the quality of these pictures, but that itself represents where I'm at right now. It's been busy around here, as in go go go. I've been busy crafting, creating, teaching, learning, experiencing, etc.  In order to make time for these things, better picture taking and blogging has fallen by the wayside. I've been okay with that.  But I do see this blog as a way to document my family's journey so here I am again making an effort to be a better historian. 

Alright back to the matter at hand...I created this summer bucket list a while back to capture what our family wants to do this summer.  We've done around 30-40% of the activities already.  We'll probably end up doing most of the things on this list.  Some activities will be done in the fall - the benefit to living in SoCal is the great weather throughout most of the year. 

This was fun to create.  I haven't had time to scrapbook in a long time so I was happy to use supplies in my scrapbook stash that were otherwise collecting dust.  

Summer Shenanigans List

Eeep! I had to drop by to share a quick peek into a fun summer list I made to capture all of the shenanigans my little family plans to have this summer. I used a cute stamp set I recently purchased @ Handmade Galleries.  *sigh* I just love the block letters so much!  I'll try to squeeze in some time to share the rest of the list soon.